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Part 6: The End

Mies began life as the son of stone mason and comes from the tradition of gothic cathedrals with towering stained-glass windows, making him conscious of materials that shaped his impact on the American city. For Mies the International Style of “less is more” was not just a stylistic preference but a driven philosophy. The international style refers to glass and steel or stone-box shaped buildings and often skyscrapers with flat roofs and void of ornamentation. The driving force of modernism was to create art completely different than anything of the past, to start anew. The evidence presented here not only explains the use of traditional references, but indeed the delicate balance of classical and modern thinking in the formulation of modern architecture.

Part 6: The Pavilion

​Plate glass, chrome steel and polished marble, the Barcelona Pavilion (1929, Barcelona Spain) was not meant to be lived in, but to display a new form of pure architecture, a new kind of modern space. In 1924 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, known as Mies, was commissioned by the German government to design the architecture for the German section of the International Exhibition to be held in Barcelona, Spain in 1929. The key feature of the design was the entrance pavilion. The Barcelona Pavilion was built to prove to the world that the world war ravaged Germany could and would rebuild itself into a new and modern country.

​The Barcelona Pavilion sits like an ancient Greek temple upon a travertine plinth. Stairs in the southwest corner allow excess. Once on the travertine floor the visitor would first see the larger of the two rectangular pools. This east to west running pool spans nearly the length of the entire structure. At the pool’s edge the floor cantilevers over the clear water, giving the effect of the structure suspended in water. A tall travertine wall with a long bench of the same material parallels but is nearly ten feet from the larger pool. Behind this wall under the smaller of the two roof plates is a service annex, the only truly indoor enclosed space of the building. Running back northwest along the large travertine wall, an exterior hallway is formed with shrubbery to the north. This hallway runs more than three quarters of the north side of the building and joins with an emerald green marble wall where the second and noticeably smaller of the two pools in located. This smaller pool is surrounded on three sides by the emerald marble walls, hand selected my Mies. In the northeast corner of the pool stands an over-life-size bronze statue by fellow German sculptor Georg Kolbe: Der Morgen (The Morning) depicts a nude figure of a woman raising her arms toward the sky, her head down to shield her eyes from the rising sun, her knees slightly bent trying to keep her balance on the tiny square plinth that separates her from the crystal water below. The statue’s organic curves and human subject are in austere contrast to the geometric building that surrounds her. To the west of the smaller pool a chromed-steel curtain wall with clear glass looks into an interior room setting. On the south wall is the black marbled wall of the pool, and on the north a wall of large rose-colored marble tiles makes this room inviting. The room is furnished with black carpet, a table, ottomans and chairs, all designed by Mies. The chair has become a cultural icon and is known today as the Barcelona Chair and was designed for the Spanish King Alfonso XII and his queen as a modern alternative for a throne, though it was never used for this purpose. At the west end of the room is an opaque glass wall, running parallel to the smaller pool. Behind the milky-glass wall is an identical opaque glass wall. In the gap between there is just enough space for an artificial light source, allowing the light wall to give ambiance to the space. Running parallel to the light wall is a black onyx wall which leads back to the larger pool and the stairwell. Melding geometric form, natural materials, function, exploratory thinking and industrial visual culture into one great whole, the Barcelona Pavilion is a sleek modern symbol of what Walter Gropius would call the modern ideal.

Part 5: The Bauhaus

​ The essay “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus” (1923), also known as “The Bauhaus Manifesto,” by Walter Gropius is a directive for artists to learn and find the ideal of creativity in opposition to the well-preserved formats of the past. In his manifesto Gropius explains that the academies of the past have failed artists and industrialists by shutting them off from the world, by telling them what to think and how to make art.  Gropius believed that the academies had locked their students in and pure life out. The academies’ format for art production based on theory and a rigorous set of techniques was seen by Gropius as destructive; in defense he formed a new kind of art school, an art school that allowed its students to think freely, to experiment with objects, mediums and ideas never before used for the production of art.

​The Bauhaus gave a firm ground for the visual arts to flourish by teaching building, not theory, as the foundation of new designs. Through the investigative efforts of experimenting with new forms and honest materials to create new designs, the manifestation of the ideas is in the work not merely theory on paper. With this in mind Gropius established as the goal of the Bauhaus to teach interdisciplinary knowledge to the students as they worked with different materials in the process of creation.  The Bauhaus originally produced mainly one-of-a-kind works. As time went on the focus transformed from individual expressions of art to radical new designs for products that could be mass produced. Without this shift in thinking it is likely that the ideas and the art of the Bauhaus would not have survived the inevitable Nazi destruction. As Hitler’s armies began to overtake Europe, successful Bauhaus faculty, including Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Josef Albers immigrated to the United States.

Part 4: Mondrian's Squares

From the 1920’s to the end of his life Piet Mondrian made a series of stylistically similar purely abstract compositions. These compositions generally are comprised of horizontal and vertical black lines set on a grid with gray, white and primary-colored squares and rectangles that appear flat with no field and depth or surface texture. These asymmetrically-balanced grid compositions with primary colors and shapes found in ideal nature are Mondrian’s signature contribution to Modern art and architecture.

​Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow (1930, in private collection) has become one of Mondrian’s most famous works of this style. This work features a dominant large red square in the top right corner; the red square is unusually larger than any other field. It is formed by the top right edges of the canvas and two equally thick black lines, one running vertically and the other running horizontally across the entire width of the canvas. In the opposite corner of these two crosshairs a strikingly blue field, approximately one-ninth the size of the red field, contains the artist’s initials “PM” and the year of its creation. Above the blue field a white field, the height of the red and the width of the blue, is divided in two by a thick, black horizontal line. Running perpendicular to this white field is another field of white. The horizontal bands of white are almost the length of the red squares but are stopped short by a vertical black line. To the right of this line is a small yellow square below a small white square; the two are divided by a horizontal line.

​Mondrian sought for a complete separation of story or narrative in his work; this is in itself the creation of a story.  To grasp a clearer understanding of Mondrian’s work it is necessary not only to understand the context in which it was created but also the aesthetic attributes it possesses.  Through his clear structure and non-representative language Mondrian believed that his art was in equal partnership with science and technology and could contribute to the realization of a utopia. His visionary mind foresaw his master works one day losing their function and being absorbed into the clear patterns of universal architecture not just a composition of lines and squares, but a new form to depict a new way of life where technology and art are combined. This desire for a combination of form and function was shared by Walter Gropius in his Bauhaus art school.  

Part 3: van Doesburg's Cow

​Abstract art does not overtly resemble anything in the world. While an abstraction, it refers to using the parts of an object to represent the whole of the given object or idea. While abstract art may seem like a radically new art form, the process by which it is created is based on concepts of abstraction used by artists for hundreds of years. The conditions by which abstract art began were not based solely out of the Parisian art culture, but had their roots across Europe with the conditions of human life as they related to the First World War.  Issues such as mass production, capitalism, poverty, psychological depression and prostitution with its inherent problems were all common topics among pre-World War I works of art. Just as passionately as they sought to expose the problems of society, literary works like The Futurist Manifesto by Marinetti invited society to reject the past and embrace the future age of modern technology and speed, with its innate violence and problems.

​Artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Theo van Doesburg attempted to systemize the process of abstract art. By paring down recognizable images to their essential forms, the works of the Abstracts could then be more easily accepted by the general society.  This explanation raises the question of how abstract art is interpreted. Is it important for the viewer to be able to find the object in an image? Or, is the importance of the true message found in the pure abstraction of the image?  

Part 2

​The Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) by Claude Monet depicts an informal scene of four people enjoying the ocean view amongst a pristinely manicured seaside garden terrace. While its flowers and shrubbery seem rich with a bacchanal life, this space has been formulaically landscaped. Crisp edges form clear boundaries of concrete and green grass. A circle of grass and flowers is mathematically centered to the square of the patio. In the center of the work a woman, wearing a flowing white dress with pink ribbons stands against the foliage-filled lattice railing with her parasol. The woman faces away from the viewer toward a gentleman in a black top hat, a brown leisure suit and a walking cane. In the foreground a well dressed man in a grey suit with shiny shoes, a walking stick and a tan hat is sitting on a cane-backed arm chair. His patriarchal age is assumed by his grey-white beard. Seated next to him is a woman with a white parasol and a cream dress that flows over either side of her arm-chair. The two are presumed to be the artist’s father and his sister. The group bask in the sun as they watch the great feats of technology in the brilliant emerald sea. A short distance from the terrace a small boat with three white sails, one large and two smaller to either side, remind the contemporary viewer of leisure hours of the past, in contrast to the large fleet of steam boats that nearly dominates the paintings horizon line. For Monet in 1867, the steam boat was the notable pinnacle in marine technology. The wispy clouds of the lilac sky, like the ocean and the terraced garden, span the entire width of the painting creating three distinct bands. The clarity of the bands or stripes is accentuated by the two vertical flag poles on either side of the couple at the railing. The flag poles fly the flags of France and Le Havre. Aesthetically, however, they create distinct crosshairs forming crisp right angles with the ocean’s horizon. This scene of calculated aesthetics and flat bands of space is a nod to the artist’s study of geometry in nature and the techniques of Japanese wood block prints. Monet himself said this work is a “Japanese painting with flags.” The flag poles also invite vertical movement in the space. Through The Garden at Sainte-Adresse Monet captured the essential balance of tradition and modernity in a cultural context, juxtaposing the sail boats with the modern industrial steamer and the crisp geometric forms and lines of the flag poles. Still, the key subject is human life, people who have the advantages of technology, the time and means to enjoy the leisure of a fresh afternoon basking in the sun. From the clear narratives of Monet, Manet and Renoir, artists of Modern Art sought to move away from the realistic depiction of natural life. The bleak realities of life and the looming world war in the first decade of the twentieth century in Europe sparked an abstraction in art.

Finding Life in Modern Architecture

Cold, austere and unforgiving are all adjectives to describe Modern art and architecture. Through this essay this perspective will be dispelled with the close examination of three works of the Modern art movement with the intent to understand the balance of traditions function in the building of a modern world. Artists and architects of the modern period, like their predecessors, created work to speak to the world they lived in and to the future to prompt a state of soul.

​The advancements of the Industrial Revolution brought new ideas to a growing and expanding world that contributed to the conditions of modernity. Technological advances including the locomotive, the steam boat, structural steel, photography, new forms of politics (including Nazism in Germany, Communism in the Soviet Union and Capitalism in the United States), and the urbanization of modern cities helped to produce a modern mindset. Cultural changes brought on by the two world wars had compelling affects as well. Artists desired to find a new way to describe the changing world around them; their response to the conditions of modernity gave way to Modern art.

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Ikea Hackers- Great Office

Joseph Wright of Derby’s Vesuvius from Posilippo

A powerful seascape painting that initially seems to invoke the pastoral bliss of maritime life. A single sailing ship is docked on the rocky shores of a romantic cove. To its left a small row boat holds the only human figures of the painting, four tiny simple figures rowing to a small island rock. The rowers push toward the rock cove, with high villa-topped cliffs sweeping up to the ethereal clouds above. These heavenly billows encase the late afternoon sun. With its warm radiating natural light, the sun stand in contrast to the catastrophic scene in the far distant right, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. With billowing red-ash clouds Vesuvius spits out its sublime wrath, flame and lava break up this otherwise calm scene. Below the fiery eruption the city of Pompeii, while visually tiny, is full of human life. Buildings, shops, homes of real people are being destroyed. Not by man or the ravages of war but the forces of nature, uncontrolled and ambiguous.

Antoine-Jean Gros’ Propaganda Art for Napoleon

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa depicts the noble Napoleon standing at the axis of the canvas around him are bodies some dead some dying of the Plague. Here in Jaffa the great Napoleon has come not only to colonize this part of the world but to safe these plague stricken people. Napoleon dressed in full military wear, a gold fringed bicorne or two-cornered black hat, black long jacket with gold trim and white calf-length trousers, a costume that today has become a symbol of Napoleon. Around his waist the soon to be Emperor of France wears a traditional Arabic sash. His right gloved hand holds his left glove as he uses his bare left hand to touch a man stricken with the Plague. Amongst the disorder of the plagues victims Gros echoes the Napoleons victory. Through the archways of the classic Arabic architecture we see the drepeau riolore, the national flag of France basking in the sunlight atop the hill.

Ikea Hackers- Painted Rug

The Intervention on the Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David

In The Sabine Women Hersilia, the woman in the center stands arms out stretched so as to, as the title suggests intervene between two opposing soldiers who happen to be her father and her husband. Her husband, Romulus on the right, stand beautifully posed the pristine contour of his angle and fair muscular definition helps the viewer more clearly define him as the hero of the scene. While his rival and Hersilia’s father, Tatius on the left, though he is still rendered as an ideal nude, he stands in a peculiar imperfect pose suggesting his demise.

Ikea Hackers: Small Space Big Ideas

The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer

A young woman most likely a maid, as the title suggests, pouring milk and breaking bread with the warm wash of morning sun reflecting on her and the few items in the room. At the far right the light source is identified as the natural sunlight shines through the small panes of an unadorned window. A simple black picture frame, a wicker basket and a copper container are the only items on the wall. This emphasizes the functionality of the room. In the forefront a simple table is covered with cloth and the basket of bread which has been painted with extra dots of white paint to give the elusion of the reflection of light make the texture and surface nearly photographic to life.

            The woman’s strong, sturdy build, a reference to her working class, is accentuated in the contrast of the bare cream wall behind. She wears a traditional Dutch crisp linen cap, vibrant yellow dress and a flowing blue apron; her sleeves are pushed up from her strong thick forearms. The woman’s gaze is directed downward and her lips pursed as in deep concentration. Her exact reason for concentration is not inherently obvious: whether focused on the task at hand, pouring the milk into the large mouthed basin, thinking about the man she loves, as referenced by the blue and white Delft tile featuring Cupid, or a deeper divine thought.  Her gaze could reference a deeper moral meaning, one that invokes spirituality in the seemingly menial daily task. This idea is echoed in the broken bread and fresh pouring milk reminiscent of the Holy Eucharist.

            Continued debate between historians has credited Vermeer’s photographic quality of painting to the use of the camera obscura, an optical device that predates the photographic camera. While it is probable he may have used a lens for his observation and composition, it is more likely that his observation of natural light reflection and his ability to recreate the light and perspective effects in paint provide this photographic quality. Whether Vermeer used this technology or not is an ongoing debate, yet the innovative compositional and painting techniques he employed have become a staple in Baroque art and a major influence on later artists.

 

The Three Trees by Rembrandt

The Three Trees, depicts a dramatically lit countryside with rich buttery clouds floating above an idealized pastoral scene of people. One set of lovers hidden in the dark bushes of the foreground and another pair leisurely conversing as the man fishes in the pond are other examples of the garden of love theme found throughout northern Europe.

The Scholar in His Study by Rembrandt

(sorry for the quality of the image, this one is hard to find a good image of online)

This monochrome etching depicts an aged man surrounded by the objects of intellectual study. His attention is lost in the supernatural light of an inscribed disk hovering in front of him. At the far right the strong forms of the globe, haphazardly-stacked books and wooden desk help vertically balance the composition by providing objects which the viewer can relate. As the focus moves toward the floating disk the viewer, like the scholar becomes awestruck by the oddity.

            The disk contains a series of letters all seemingly meaningless except for the four most central, “INRI” a known monogram of Jesus Christ.  Supernatural light emanates from the floating disk and is made even brighter as Rembrandt’s careful hand clearly differentiates this light from the natural light that pours in the intricately paned window. The veiled reference to Christ in contrast to the objects of earthly studies is evidence of Rembrandt’s desire to continue to produce works with moral meaning and religious undertone. 

            While Rembrandt excelled in the traditional medium of oil painting, The Scholar is a demonstration of the effort and pictorial effects Rembrandt discovered that distinguished him from all other etchers throughout history. Part of the greatness of Rembrandt is his ability to take a medium widely regarded throughout Europe for its graphic technique, used to produce multiple copies of simple stylized images and to achieve the same effects of chiaroscuro to in capturing specific lighting and tonal qualities employed in his paintings.

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The Garden of Love by Peter Paul Rubens

In this painting a gathering of aristocratic-like lovers are overseen by Venus, goddess of love, beauty and fertility to celebrate his recent wedding. The garden, a common theme in Northern European art is an allegory of the Virgin Mary and motifs within the garden generally include lush foliage and fresh fruit. On the far left a grounded putto, presumably Cupid, pushes the new couple, Rubens and his young bride Helena, into a fairytale-like garden inhabited by a group of people who, like Helena and Rubens, are lavishly dressed in vibrantly colored, texturally rich, ornate costumes.  Their faces are supple hues of soft pinks with white to highlight surface quality of the flesh. The viewer is captivated by the typical Rubensesque overt plumpness of each lover giving them a proud bearing and healthy physique.  The group forms a diagonal hierarchy across the composition.  The viewer follows a spiral pattern of classically-posed figures that have come to life through Rubens’s voluptuously free-flowing brushstrokes, ultimately culminating with a fountain statue of Venus as Rubens references both his quotation of antiquity in the Venus Pudica and an embodiment of the love he feels toward his wife. Two putti continue the spiraling movement to another group of lovers within the architectural archways and stone columns of a Venetian-inspired grotto, overseen by a statue of the Three Graces representing chastity, beauty and love.  Beyond the stone structure Rubens paints an ideal countryside and cool colored sky in the distance.  The vibrant primary color of the lovers’ costumes and the strength of the composition give clarity and simplicity to what would otherwise be a disorganized scene reminiscent of kermis, or peasant paintings of the Bruegel tradition.

The Death of Germanicus by Nicholas Poussin

This painting depicts a group of Roman soldiers in a wide range of emotions regarding the unjust death of their heroic captain. On the far left a soldier turns his muscular back toward the viewer and raises his hand to his face as though hiding his despair. With this contrast of the outward physical strength and the real human emotion, the realism of the surface of the flesh makes the viewer more aware of what is happening, introspectively to the character.  Next to him another soldier rests his head in his palm and closes his eye in a desolate manner to suggest his reflection of the moment.

 The group of soldiers is embodied by the two foremost soldiers: one is wearing a vibrant red cloak and shimmering helmet, his contrapposto pose suggests he has just arrived, while the other key soldier stands solid, resembling a marble statue. He is wearing golden armor and stands closest to Germanicus with his hand raised heavenward to display his level of allegiance. Poussin draws the viewer’s eye to the crisp white forms of Germanicus’s cloak. The essential moral link in the painting is the V shape created by angles of the statuesque soldier together with the form of the grieving wife Agrippina and son, the future Emperor Caligula. In this void lies the dying Germanicus, who is honored for his virtue and piety by the broad-shouldered soldiers and a loving family alike.

            Germanicus is a testimony to Poussin’s study of ancient Roman history and archaeology.  The work is reminiscent of a Roman frieze: the horizontal lines, the row of figures and the blue drapery above the bed bring order of movement close to the viewer and create intimacy in the scene. Fortunately Poussin moves past the relief-like qualities in his creation of depth in the space. The backgrond is complete with pilasters, roundels, keystones and spacious archways, allowing the architecture to echo the narrative in the scene. Poussin’s display of a controlled freedom of the brush, intricate detail, diverse use of bold forms and figures helps to portray a wide variety of moral meaning. This work shows the wide range of emotion and thematic detail, including comradeship and a dignified manner in which all should meet and reverence life and death, which Poussin was able to portray in his paintings.

The Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe

 Plate glass, chrome steel and polished marble, it was not meant to be lived in but to display a new form of pure architecture, new kind of modern space.
 The Barcelona Pavilion to me is the culmination of the work of the Bauhaus.

Molding form, function, exploratory thinking and industrial visual culture in to one great whole, the Barcelona Pavilion is a sleek modern representation of what Walter Gropius would call the “Modern Ideal.”

Who ever thought you could make an Ikea Lack table look so good?

Sommarnöjen by Anders Zorn

Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the ashes of Germanicus by Benjamin West

Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the ashes of Germanicus  Agrippina was the wife of the Roman general Germanicus, who nobility led his troops and eventually was murdered in his sacrifice to protect Rome.

The Marriage Contract by Greuze

The Marriage Contract depicts the contractual exchange of a dowry between the father of the potential bride and the potential husband. Like many of works by Greuze the viewer find a large working class family in their humble pre-Revolution home. The group stands in a semi circular composition to allow the viewer access to every character in the narrative. At the center stand the impending bride and groom. They show no emotion toward each other their love is expressed, though minimally, in their linked arms. Both cast their gaze to the ground with a look of uncertainty for their future. Other members of the household listen intently to the words of the wise ageing father, his arms outstretched and powerful affixed on the daughter he is allowing to mature and become married. A man in the far right is dress in a black suit with his back toward the viewer and his face only seen in profile view. He too is anxiously engaged as the impending contract is completed. Greuze paints the children on the house in the background; each face is wrought with emotion. Some bored, some inquisitive and some oblivious to the contract being exchanged. These children help emphasize the passing of the generations and the naturalness of life’s changes that no one is ever really ready to accept. One little girl stands in the lower left corner, she hold up her apron which is full of grain to feed the chicken and chicks on the rough wooden floorboards below the feet of the bride and groom. One of the chicks has ventured away from the parent to find a bowl of water to quench its thirst. With this simple gesture Greuze reinforces the narrative of the scene between the father and daughter. Though the authoritative figure of bother the father and the chicken are physically close at hand the possibility for great change has become a realization in the minds of the youth.

Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Venetian Pleasures

Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Venetian Pleasures. depicts an unrealistic dreamlike landscape where a group of well dressed aristocrats gather to enjoy the leisure of social pleasures. The people gossip, chat and even flirt as one couple takes to the forest for in dance.  Through his fête galantes works Watteau created a new genre of paintings that depict nobles, exquisite landscape, and architecture with no clear narrative.

A Reading ofA Reading from Molière by Jean François de Troy

​A Reading of Molière by Jean François de Troy depicts a group of finely dressed aristocrats in an equally exquisitely decorated Rococo interior salon setting. An older gentleman sits in the center of the group reading to the others from a book which has been presumed to be Molière. Some of the characters seem to be interested in the reading. The woman dark green dress with gold embroidery for instance leans over toward the reader so as to read the words for herself. Not all the characters are as interested by the reading. A younger man with a white wig, dark suit and ruffled white sleeves leans on one of the chair backs. He is distracted from the lecture by the young woman who’s back is toward the viewer and wears a red shawl. Two other women are also uninterested in the reading, the woman in the vibrant blue cloak seated at the far right and the woman just above the reader. Both look directly to the audience.

Greuze's Filial Piety

In Filial Piety Greuze depicts a working-class family gathered around their father in their humble underground home. In the center of the work Greuze uses diagonal lines and bright light to give emphasis to the body, face and hands of the dying patriarch. The diagonal lines created by the staircase create visual interest and help ground the viewer. The cloth that is draped over the handrail is reminiscent of classic dramatic scenes like Nicolas Poussin’s The Death of Germanicus. The gaze of every family member, including the dog is set on the dying father. Greuze paints most of the details of the scene on the bottom half of the picture plane leaving only some vague architecture on the top half.

Ozondah Mercantile

These are just a few of the great items I have for sale right now.

 This beautiful Vintage look “Palazzo” Natural Bone Picture Frame is in great condition.  Stand 4 inches by 4 inches.  This frame retails for around $50!

SOLD

This eye-catching Vintage look Hand blown Emerald Glass  GreenVase stand about 6 inches tall  $10

 Vintage Thermopolis WY 7up Bottle is from 1939.  $5

 This handsome Vintage Chopin Bust stands about 3 ½ inches tall.  It is made from hard plastic.  $5

 This beautiful Vintage Look Antiqued Tin Picture Frame is a bout 8 inches wide.  It features what look to be hand stamped floral design. $10

This is a beautiful Vintage Westinghouse Silver Creamer Pitcher. It stands about 6 inches tall and features the Westinghouse Silver stamp on the reverse. $10

If you would like to purchase any of these items you and contact me or purchase them through my eBay store.

Fall is in the Air- Persimmon

David's Oath of the Horatii

The Oath became so widely known and revered among artist and art critics that its impact dramatically changed the approach to artistic works that preceded it; The Oath became the standard for corporal expression. The Oath depicts three sturdy upright soldiers as they leave their family in preparation for war. They make their oath, their arms out stretched to their father Horatii as they commit to give their lives in defense of Rome. Standing between them and the weeping families they leave David has positioned the noble Horatii. The Oath symbolizes a call for truth among the 1780’s French, and echoes the sacrifice that the French must soon take to revolt against their own suppressive government.

Carl Larsson - Apple Orchard

Carl Larsson's Apple Orchard is a great inspiration for fall colors. I love how the vibrant blue dress and red house harmonize with the gold autumn foliage. As the trees begin to change color remember 'nothing gold can stay', enjoy the autumn beauty while it lasts.

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Vibrant Fall Colors and Lot of Wall Art

Views of Mount Fuji series

A woodblock print from the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series. This view entitled The Barrel-maker of Fujimihara by Katsushika Hokusai. The Barrel-maker depicts a tiny aged man kneeling inside his latest creation, a large open ended barrel. In the foreground are his worn wooden mallets and barrel making materials while in the background lays a green landscape beyond the sun scorched rice fields and further still the far distant peek of the tiny snow capped Mount Fuji. The repetitive use of circles in the large barrel narrates this otherwise mundane scene. The barrel-maker, with his gaze fixated on his work and the beauty of natural world behind him.

Art in the Home

 Invest in your favorite paintings and statues that most clearly represent, to you, your creator. Seeing these positive images can have a profound effect on your relationship between you and your creator.